19 comments:

[Oh dear...I think you may need to turn on Word Verification to stop the spam!: see "Settings: Comments: Word Verification" ]

Wonderful news! Thanks be to God! You know my prayers are with you, and I'll be sure to pray for you before the icon of St Michael in our church each Sunday.

You'll be received before me! ;-)

O Lord, You who steadied the hand of Peter as he began to sink on the stormy sea, if you are with me, no one is against me. Grant to me the shield of faith and the mighty armour of the Holy Spirit to protect me and guide me to do Your will. The future I put into Your hands, O Lord, and I follow You to a life in Christ. Amen.[Orthodox Prayer Toward the Unknown]

Mnohya Lita! on your news Michael. I'll definately say a prayer for you before the Icon of St. Michael (also my middle name) in my Icon Corner.

Oh and Leetle M., your getting some competetion on the three year catechumen thing from this side of the pond. I was made a Catechumen well over 18 months ago at the rocor parish I attended. Strange I don't know if I am still canonically a Catechumen or not as I left that bunch of loonies after they started talking about going to some schismatic looney sect. Had enough of More-Orthodox-than-you-know-who thank you very much....

Joe, I think somebody else must have been talking to you about a three-year catechumenate; I don't think I said anything about it except to say I took my time studying before I became Orthodox. It's good to take plenty of time, of course, and make a thoughtful decision.

What I did to help make this decision was to write, for my spiritual father, a spiritual autobiography of my whole life. Then I wrote out exactly what I believed about each phrase of the Nicene Creed. My spiritual father used those documents to see where my faith needed "adjusting", and then he taught me about Orthodoxy. I was fortunate in that I was the only one he had to teach at the time.

The "jurisdiction" stuff is sometimes a real problem. If we have landed in a parish that's "wrong for us", we can always move to one that is better suited to our situation.

But one is not a "loony" just for being in a particular "jurisdiction". It's the other way round: when enough loonies get into a jurisdiction, sometimes they can change it for the worse. It depends on whether they are truly Orthodox loonies, or just loonies. :)

I always made sure I stayed well away from that kind of stuff, and nowadays (since I'm too old for squabbles) I just go to the closest parish. Fortunately, none of the "jurisdictions" where I live are full of loonies, at least not yet. The parish I go to now happens to be Greek.

Sorry for double post, but I wanted to mention, for Joe's and anybody else's sake, that when you find that the parish you're in doesn't "fit", for whatever reason, and you have to go to another parish, talk to the priest in the new parish and find out as much about that parish/jurisdiction as you can. Tell the priest honestly what has been happening since you began to want to be Orthodox. If it's a place where they "hop" from bishop to bishop according to whim, you can be pretty sure they are in some outfit that isn't quite canonical. The Rocor, the Moscow Patriarchate, the Church of Antioch, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the national churches of the C.I.S. are most likely to be canonical. If someone approaches you and says they are a priest of the Holy and Most Orthodox Autonomous Church of Lower Transylvania and Dependencies, beware.

There are a lot of "bogus" Orthodox churches around. Google before joining.

Many thanks, everyone, for your prayers and also for your advice about the spam. Let's hope it's fixed. It all reminds me of that Monty Python song. You know the one: "Lovely spam! wonderful spam!" &c.

In my prayers, Joe. Many thanks, Leetle M, for your sound advice. I have come across a few barmcake "jurisdictions" online. It's quite amusing, if not rather worrying. It's upsetting when they get hold of people who are genuinely seeking the Faith though.

There's a bunch of them here:http://www.ind-movement.org/

I'm quite happy with my parish, and spiritual Father. Such loving people and such a gentle man. I may well follow your suite, Leetle M, and write a spiritual autobiography for him (which would probably also be useful for me).

Hi Michael greetings from down under. I was searching for the latest information on prayers , I can see how I landed on your page. While Catechumenate wasn't exactly what I was looking for. (I was after prayers related stuff) I ejoyed reading your blog, I'll come back agin to read future posts. Take Care.

Greetings Michael I was looking for pray information and I landed on your pages. While Catechumenate was not excatly what I was looking for , I like your blog Great Stuff. I'll bookmark it for future visits. If you have time check out pray , Ok thanks for the read , take care.

About Me

I am an Orthodox Christian and a Reader in the Diocese of Great Britain and Ireland, serving with the blessing of His Grace Archbishop Mark. I struggle along, much like most people, but I do what I can, by God's grace.
I have a love for the worship of the Orthodox Church - both eastern and western - and long for the day when we have a local Orthodox Church in Britain, giving a single voice and witness of the ancient Faith of these isles to the people of these isles, with their various backgrounds and walks of life.

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This weblog is not an official site of the Russian Orthodox Church or any of its parishes or missions. The views expressed herein are solely my own except where otherwise stated, and are not necessarily representative of my diocese or parish. Any mistakes or misrepresentations are due to my own failings, for which I ask your patience and forgiveness.